In the prior art it has been suggested providing informational data on the hardcopy print in a manner that is visually indistinguishable from the image. For example, it has been suggested in various patent applications the printing of a hardcopy print using digital printing techniques wherein informational data is embedded in the image. Examples are set forth in copending U.S. Ser. No. 08/565,804, filed Nov. 30, 1995, by Scott J. Daly et al, entitled METHOD FOR EMBEDDING DIGITAL INFORMATION IN AN IMAGE; U.S. Ser. No. 08/596,818, filed Feb. 5, 1996, by Scott J. Daly, entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR HIDING ONE IMAGE OR PATTERN WITHIN ANOTHER; U.S. Ser. No. 08/768,679, filed Dec. 18, 1996, by Chris W. Honsinger et al, entitled METHOD FOR DETECTING ROTATION AND MAGNIFICATION AND IMAGES; and U.S. Ser. No. 08/842,112, filed Apr. 28, 1997, by Chris W. Honsinger et al, entitled METHOD FOR GENERATING AN IMPROVED CARRIER FOR USE IN AN IMAGE DATA EMBEDDING APPLICATION. It has also been suggested in copending, commonly assigned U.S. Ser. No. 09/211,234, filed Dec. 14, 1998, by David L. Patton et al, entitled AUTO RESTORATION OF A PRINT, a means for providing a coordinate system, which is embedded into the digitally formed image, which can be used in relating other informational data that has also been encoded on the print to later printing and/or displaying of the image. All of the above U.S. applications are hereby incorporated by reference.
A problem with the foregoing disclosures is that in order to provide the informational data on the print which is not visible, digital printing techniques are used at the time of printing of the original print. This suffers from several drawbacks. First, this does not allow the addition of additional information later on. Secondly, while the original image is not distorted at some point, in order to avoid further degradation of the image the amount of information allowed is limited. In addition, this system also requires a scanner or computer techniques for observing of the information encoded in the hardcopy print.
Applicants have provided an improved method and apparatus wherein information can be put on the hardcopy print at the time of manufacturing of the print, or at some later date, which can be easily read and associated with the image.